Not so long ago, I too would have described the Bansang Nagkakaisa sa Diwa at Layunin (BANDILA) the way Benjie Guevara and Joey Salgado do -- as a "breakaway group from the multi-sectoral BAYAN alliance [Bagong Alyasang Makabayan]" (MALAYA, Jan. 8).

But not any more. Innumerable defections (former Senators Jose W. Diokno, Lorenzo Tanada, and most recently, Ambrosio Padilla) have reduced BAYAN’s leadership cadre to the likes of Leandro Alejandro and J. Virgilio Bautista, one-time student leaders who couldn’t get their candidates to win in last year’s Student Council elections at the University of the Philippines.

The most telling blow against BAYAN’s claim to being a broad-based popular movement is the massive outpouring of popular support for Mrs. Corazon C. Aquino. Every expression of support for Cory is a vote against BAYAN’s intransigent call for a boycott.

Yet BAYAN ignores the public temper. As it sounds more and more like an irresponsible student organization, it becomes increasingly difficult for an honest man to call it a popular, broad-based multi-sectoral alliance.

Calling BANDILA "a breakaway group from the multisectoral BAYAN alliance" may be factually true but substantively stupid as calling Christianity a breakaway group from Judaism.
 

J. Pedrosa Ramas